Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Hybrid Path to Feeding 9 Billion on a Still- Green Planet

Improvements in crop genetics and wasteful, inefficient farming and food
management provide the biggest gains in a plan to triple agricultural
production on today’s global farm acreage, with the potential shifts displayed
above. This vision of a path to feeding roughly 9 billion people with rising
living standards, while also limiting deforestation and other damage to
ecosystems, comes fromJason Clay, a longtime analyst of the intersection of food and the environment and
a senior vice president of the World Wildlife Fund.

Here’s hisdraft paper on this strategy. The genetic work he describes includes all
uses of genetic research to improve plant productivity or farming efficiency.
Genetic modification, the realm of the GMO’s that are anathema to some
environmentalists and much of Europe, is a subset of that arena. [At theClimate, Mind and Behavior Conferenceof the Garrison Institute on Thursday, Clay
laid out the logic behind working with big corporations to foster food
production that can fit on a finite planet. He made a point thathe stressed at the recent annual meetingof the American Association for the
Advancement of science: "In the next 40 years we're going to have to
produce as much food as was produced in last 8,000."]

Clay’s work builds in part on the research of Jon Foley, the director of
the Institute of the Environment at the University of Minnesota. I encourage
you to review Foley’s argument fora resilient hybrid strategy. Here’s how he put it in an interview with
Earth & Sky:

I think we need a new kind of agriculture – kind of a third agriculture,
between the big agribusiness, commercial approach to agriculture, and the
lessons from organic and local systems…. Can we take the best of both of these
and invent a more sustainable, and scalable agriculture? [Read, and hear, his answer..]

Food Sustainability: Can We Feed 9 Billion People In 2050? by John Johnston on
01/12/2011 in Earth,Living,Social,THE 9BILLION,People,Planet,Purpose,Pleasure:
“Will we be able to feed the estimated 9 billion people living on Earth in
2050? The answer may be yes, reports NewScientist. Well that’s according to a
new food sustainability paper out this week.

The findings are the result of a five year joint modeling project by two French
national agencies: INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research)
and CIRAD (Agricultural Research For Development).

The
aim was to see how 3000 calories per day per person, for 9 billion people,
could be achieved, including 500 calories per person from animal sources. The
team ran a global model repeatedly, with and without environmental limits on
farming. The upshot seems to be that we will need to counter excessive fluctuations in
food prices so that imports in some regions (that will need imports) are not
hindered, even if local food production rises.

Another main finding is that “the rich must stop consuming so much” food. It is
pointed out that around 800 food calories per person per day is currently lost
as food waste in the wealthier nations.

The study found that yield increases could help to feed 9 billion people, even
as farmers take measures such as cutting down on the use of fossil fuels in
industrialized farming practices. The key will be to come up with different
solutions for different regions of the world.

Industrial high-yield farming currently means large areas of one crop. This is
causing quite a few problems, including crop diseases and the overuse of
pesticides. The researchers suggest that ways need to be found to raise yields
at the same time as maintaining biodiversity. No easy task”

There’s been much discussion recently ofquick,
cheap steps,with
many benefits, that could slow warming driven by the atmospheric
buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. They all involve greenhouse gases
other than carbon dioxide, along with black carbon — the sooty emanations fromdiesel
enginesand guttering
cooking fires that both heat and kill.

I’ve done some writing in this arena, most notably in my coverage of
opportunities to stanchvast
leaks of natural gas(most
of which ismethane,
a potent greenhouse gas) from oil and gas facilities around the world.

Despite their appeal, such steps are almost meaningless when considering
the grand challenge of limiting warming even as human numbers and energy
appetites crest in coming decades, an array of climate scientists warn. (Hansen
always stressed there was ultimately no way around the CO2 challenge.)

Given the recent push on other substances, many of the scientists most
deeply immersed in charted human-driven heating of the planet have become
increasingly concerned that carbon dioxide’s primacy is under-appreciated.

Everybody
is concerned now about climate change in the wake of greenhouse gas emissions
and global warming.

“Climate
change concerns and the need to reduce carbon emissions are driving increasing
growth in the renewable energy industries. Some 85 countries now have targets
for their own renewable energy futures, and have enacted wide-ranging public
policies to promote renewables. Low-carbon renewable energy replaces
conventional fossil fuels in three main areas: power generation, hot water/
space heating, and transport fuels.

In terms of power generation, renewable energy currently provides 18 percent of
total electricity generation worldwide and this percentage is growing each
year. Renewable power generators are spread across many countries, and wind
power alone already provides a significant share of electricity in some areas:
for example, 14 percent in the U.S. state of Iowa, 40 percent in the northern
German state of Schleswig-Holstein, and 20 percent in Denmark. Some countries
get most of their power from renewables, including Iceland (100 percent),
Brazil (85 percent), Austria (62 percent), New Zealand (65 percent), and Sweden
(54 percent).

Solar water heating makes an important and growing contribution in many
countries, most notably in China, which now has 70 percent of the global total
(180 GWth).
Worldwide, total installed solar water heating systems meet a portion of the
water heating needs of over 70 million households. The use of biomass for
heating continues to grow as well. In Sweden, national use of biomass energy
has surpassed that of oil. Direct geothermal heating is also growing rapidly.

Renewable
biofuels for transportation, such as ethanol fuel and biodiesel, have
contributed to a significant decline in oil consumption in the United States
since 2006. The 93 billion liters of biofuels produced worldwide in 2009
displaced the equivalent of an estimated 68 billion liters of gasoline, equal
to about 5 percent of world gasoline production.

Scientists have advanced a plan to power 100% of the world's energy with wind,
hydroelectric, and solar power by the year 2030, recommending renewable energy
subsidies and a price on carbon reflecting its cost for flood and related
expenses (Source: Wikipedia)”.